Visits to Hogsmeade were always popular with the students, but it seemed that nobody wanted to miss the winter market. When Johanna had been asked to work that day, she hadn’t minded – she took as many hours as she could get. Now that she was actually here though she started to realise exactly what ‘working the Christmas market’ meant. The Hog’s Head’s stall was set up with kegs on one side and griddles for cooking on the other. She was immediately grateful that she at least didn’t have to work this shift alone, because there was no way she could tap, cook, and hold conversations with customers all at the same time. Wait, hold up – they expected her to cook?

Jo quickly glanced down at the menu taped to the front of the stall and was relieved to find nothing complicated on it. Burgers, sausages, … she could probably handle that. Suddenly, the scary feeling of responsibility dawned on her. At the inn, all she had to do was take people’s orders and bring it to them – anything else was pretty much out of her hands. Not her responsibility. Now it was. Oh no, she was going to have to do things – and do them well! She sincerely hoped Pursglove was better at that than she was. Speaking of…

“Hullo,” a lacklustre greeting, but then the Slytherin was a very lacklustre person all-together. She leaned against one of the kegs, hands jammed into the pockets of her coat. She should’ve tried that heating spell – hell, she should be taking her magical education a whole lot more serious in general. “Nice day, innit?” She wasn’t sure why she was trying to make Smalltalk, possibly because she had never been a very social co-worker – always taking breaks alone to go off smoking and leaving as soon as she could clock out – that was kind of awkward now that they were both stuck in what was essentially a cubicle. Then again, the pointless chit-chat was awkward too, so she straightened herself and kept talking as if she hadn’t just tried to bring up the cloudless sky. “So, ye think it’ll be busy for us, or? Personally, I’d be getting mulled wine if I had a choice.”

Jo looked out over the square from their stall, grey eyes gliding over the other booths and activities that had been set up around the town’s square, with the ice rink at its centre. That she was missing out on that was actually not something she cared about – she was a terrible skater, and would honestly just make a fool out of herself. Besides, none of these activities were all that appealing if you didn’t have friends to do them with. Johanna knew that working today didn’t make much of a difference for her, maybe she wouldn’t even have bothered going to the market otherwise.

She glanced back at Octavius, aware of how little she knew about the guy, and wondered if he’d rather be out there at the festival, or if he took this shift himself. She shrugged it off and turned on the griddle.

---Johanna and @Octavius Pursglove both work at The Hog's Head Inn and were asked to work at the winter market. At this stall you can get beer and food. Picnic tables have been set up under a canopy next to the stall so people can sit down as they eat.

The sight of Hogsmeade in winter had become a familiar one, as Octavius was walking down to the Hog’s Head almost every day - or at least whenever it was possible for him to delay classes and homework for long enough to squeeze in a few hours of work. All he had wanted was to be able to buy Hadriana a pretty Christmas gift - a snowglobe, if possible one of those she had been forced to sell. He hated their situation, and he also hated the dull, boring work at the pub - but he knew that without it, they would be even worse off than they currently were, and that was something he did not even want to imagine. Despite standing behind the stall and facing all the heating devices for roasting burger meat and sausages, he had dressed in his Hufflepuff scarf and the thickest jacket he had found in his wardrobe, even though there were several holes in the seams already, the feathers poking out of it. It was the last thing he allowed himself to worry about while tying an apron around himself to stop his jacket from looking even worse.

He had been caught up in such dull tasks that he had not noticed his co-worker had arrived until she actually addressed him. Cobalt eyes settled on Johanna’s face, and he muttered a greeting as well, because there was just no room for niceties when one was working in a dirty pub together. Tavy liked her, that was out of question - working with the girl was easy enough, and there was nothing in between them. But he was cold, and despite having signed up for today’s shift voluntarily there was this bittersweet yearning for living a normal life, with hair and clothes that did not smell of dirty cleaning rags and grease.

Judging by the setup, they would have to prepare the food as it was only the two of them. In all honesty, Octavius was not sure if this would be a good idea, as his cooking skills were - due to his upbringing - not exactly high class. Then again what did it actually matter, given that the food in the Hog’s Head was not exactly upper class either. They would probably manage to make some fries and baked potatoes, and put onions on burgers. “Sooner or later everyone will get hungry, I guess,” he finally replied, now offering Johanna a very small smile as he moved the mustard and ketchup bottles aside.

In the pub, his main tasks were filling and refilling beer cups as well as cleaning tables, so this sure was going to be a small challenge. But outside of that, he was just going to watch what everyone else was doing from their stall, ignoring the sound of his stomach as the scents made him hungry, no matter how familiar they were by now.__Octavius volunteered to work at the stall and attempts a bit of bad small talk with @Johanna Corduroy. They’re manning up the stall all by themselves, yay!

Setting up a stall and decorating it with halfway loving hands had been more exhausting than Hermelin had expected, and so he allowed himself to close the stall for about half an hour, attaching another small sign with the note that he would be back soon on the front before letting the keys slip into his pocket and walking across the town square with all its stalls and booths. So many different scents were in the air, so many flashy lights and signs. The mortician could not quite remember when there last had been such a spectacle at Hogsmeade, but he embraced the busy buzz, given he mostly kept to himself. It was just him and his pets on most days, unless his nieces or the few friends he had made over the years he was living here were passing by. Picking up frightened boys from the streets had not been on his pre-holiday plans either, but he was always glad to help in his own, casual and disgruntled ways.

If only someone was going to help him because Hermelin was seriously hungry, and most offered food seemed to be all too sweet for his liking - tough talk for a man who was selling gingerbread hearts. But those were not necessarily meant to be eaten, while he was not sure if everyone had received the memo of using them as decorations. It was none of his business, as he was aware they tasted quite nice on top of it all. Burying his hands deep in the pockets of his coat, he marched on - and never in his life had he been so delighted to see the familiar font of the Hogs's Head, this time plastered on a sign above one of the stalls, with two teenagers behind it. The scents here did not remind him of a fair or a circus - cotton candy, burned almonds and sweetcorn - but more meaty and almost like home. There were burgers and sausages, the usual food that was a great foundation for beer which was consumed a lot in the pub. Hermelin had gone there before, but he had never been quite pleased with the beer there. As someone born in Germany, he had certain standards.

Following the groaning of his stomach, Hermelin approached the stall, studying the handwritten menu before his green eyes fell on the two students who were working there. Both were familiar, as fading shadows he passed in Hogsmeade - but the girl was more familiar than the boy. Like a photograph, he remembered how she had been sitting on one of the gravestones at the cemetery as if it was an armchair placed there just for her, smoking while he had reprimanded her for it. To think that such a girl was going to grill him a burger was mildly distressing, although such an emotion did not show on the mortician's face. Yet.

"A burger, please. With bacon and onion. Please try not to sit on it before serving it, yes?" he muttered at the girl, raising a dark brow before squinting a little. He was not even going to bother with the beer. "Do you happen to sell coffee here as well?" Honestly, he should have brought a whole pot along for his stall, but he had not been thinking about it enough.

__Hermelin takes a short break from his stall and visits the Hog's Head for food. He orders a burger and coffee and asks @Johanna Corduroy if she is going to sit on the burger before serving it, because the two have history together.